this past week

• thus far, i'm the top salesman this month. there's still a week left, though.
• i'm extremely tired because besides my regular 7-3 ish dayjob, i've been spending 1-2 hours a day doing some freelance PR, right now for the christian versian of i-tunes. not to mention riding my bike to work now as well as cooking dinner most days, since mel works 8-6 and i'm home first
  
• mel's friend kristy is coming to visit for a week, from tonight (Sat) to next Sat.
• next sat is april fool's day, and also, euromotion is performing.
• the new ghostface album, "fishscales" is fucking dope.
• Portland is America's best bicycling city, Bicycling magazine has determined, for like 10 year in a row. it's dope to bike to work in like 15 mins, and ride over an ill bridge and alongside the river for like 10 mins out of the ride. exercise + faster commute + free is pretty ill...
• cooked up some ill tostadas the other day. black bean and chicken with some homemade guac and sour creme is the jam, most def...simple , too.. for the guac, just toss the following in a food processor or blender for like a minute: an avocado, a large tomato, a chili pepper or jalapeno, 1/2 an onion, some cilantro, some olive oil, a couple cloves of garlic and the juice from 1/2 a lime. done. toss a can of black beans, some garlic, onion and a pepper of your choice, i rocked a chipolte i think, in a pot on the stove. throw some chicken breasts (rub em a little w/ some cumin or something) on top of the beans, add a little beer or wine or something, cover it up and let it simmer on low for like an hour...check on it every once in awhile. get some tostadas, put em on the table, spread the black beans on em, top w/ some chicken, then the guac, then a little sour creme and blammo you got a dope meal..
• saw the movie the squid and the whale last night..pretty dope flick. also been rocking a different sushi spot once a week around here. been feeling the bbq eel, the pieces of salmon, and as always, the spicy runa roll. gimme those w/ some miso soup and a little ginger dressing salad, a small sake, and some japanese green tea and i'm money. once again, cant wait for tokyo this summer...
• we're probably going to check out vancouver, BC, real soon. about a 5-6 hour drive north of here. any stories on vancouver?
  

Medoyeff Vodka

peep the bomb locally made vodka

babies, beer, food and more

I'd like to take this time to give a shout out to baby Daniel Alexander Goldberg. Welcome to the tribe, brother.

another quick shout out to Briz, who I haven't spoken to in about a year... whatup briz, good luck down in Columbus, Georgia with your crew, the hood presidents...

rented a car for Saturday to run errands and eat the bomb dim sum at Wong's King Seafood on 87th and Division... the 30-40 minute wait was well worth it for that amazing har gow (shrimp dumplings) , shu mai (pork dumplings), chu sao bao (steamed bbq pork buns), super tasty steamed chinese brocolli w/ oyster sauce, bbq honey roasted pork (can you tell i love pork? such a bad jew....)

had possibly the best beer i've had yet last night at the alamaeda brew house... their black bear stout... so creamy, chocolately, coffee-like delicious... - www.alamedabrewhouse.com

bought a couple of little strawberry plants and planted them in a hanging basket...

happy bday to my unc jay, your present's in the mail.

and i'm going to end this by saying i can't fucking wait to go to japan this summer and check all these spots out

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another slow cooker recipe

wow...made another amazing meal today...

so last night i rinsed a bagful of black beans and rubbed some country pork chops w/ a cumin, paprika, chili, garlic salt and brown sugar rub....stuck them in the fridge, left the beans out to dry...

this morning at about 6:30 am, i sliced up a red onion and through that and about 6 cloves of garlic in the bottom of the slow cooker...added the beans, the country pork chops (fat side up), a small can of tomato sauce and 5 cups of water...added a thai chili sliced in 1/2, and some seasoning salt. put the thing on low, covered and jetted to work.

came home about 10 hours later, smelled like heaven in the crib, stirred it up for about 30 secs and the pork came all apart, blended in w. the beans, took out 2 bones, added some hot sauce, some red wine, a teaspoon of salt and some fresh cilantro...

spooned over saffron rice w/ lots of cilantro and garnished w/ sour creme like what?!!? got a pic too i'll post later.

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gardening, etc

1) we got new hiking shoes. you had to wear PJ's at the sale to get 30% off:


2) my garlic is growing pretty good:



















3) ok so i've been throwing all compost/organic matter in my little garden out back all winter long and have been turning it to make the soil really healthy...well this weekend, i began sowing some seeds...threw some carrot, radish and pole pea seeds in the ground and watered...these, i've learned, are the first to plant for the spring - a couple of weeks before the last frost....

4) through together a ground turkey meatloaf real quick tonight w/ chopped onion, garlic, a lil mustard, an egg, some worchestchire, some A1, salt, pepper, cumin and chili powder. mixed, tossed 1/2 in a pan like mom used to do, then some spinach, then some cheese, and then the rest of the meat mix. spread ketchup & bbq on top. pop in the oven on 350 for about an hour or so... served w/ some brocolli steamed w/ lemon and garlic, some rolls and a salad. red leaf lettuce, dog. gotta switch up the lettuce! and cukes. and french dreezy...and some quail oak cheapy cabernet tonight...

Sasquatch Fesitval

sickest festival coming up @ the columbia river gorge

the shins, beck, death cab for cutie and MANY more:

http://www.sasquatchfestival.com

hump day

ground turkey and spinach enchiladas tonight and another sale today at work.

evan called this weekend, was nice to hear from a cuz. talked to alex and goldbean about Yo CUZ! publicity helping out Goldbean's boxing publicity empire. keep playing phone tag w/ bj. tim sent me a text msg. chatted w/ both my grandparents last weekend. both jays are chillin - my uncle and mel's cousin... abbies moving...

any new babies? marc? new weddings? new moves? new jobs? keep me up to date, people. what's new with y'all? post some comments about what heads are up to...let me know who actually reads my ramblings...and happy mardi gras. and happy wednesday (ash) and hash. browns, that is...

UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports

wtf is up with this?!?!?
UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports

slow cooker

tested our slow cooker out yesterday with a nice pulled pork. the night before i was to make it, i rubbed the pork with a spice mixture of equal parts brown sugar and a spicy red powder that forget to label - it's not a chile powder, but it's spicier than a paprika...i think it's hungarian paprika...so i did about a 1/3 cup of each of those. then about a 1/4 cup of the following: salt, garlic powder, black pepper...thats pretty much it for the rub....rubbed it all in, massaged the pork shoulder...covered it and put it in the fridge over night...

next morning at about 6:45 am, sliced up a couple fat slices of red onion. put then in the bottom of the slow cooker. then, put the pork shoulder on top of the onions, fatty side up. drizzled some worchetshire over it, some hot sauce, a little apple cider vinegar and some bbq sauce. added a tiny bit of water in the bottom. turned it on low, covered it up and jetted to work.

on my way home from work, i stopped at safeway and copped some french bread rolls, some cole slaw and some pickles.

when i opened the door to my house, the smell hit me like a ton of bricks and MAN DID IT SMELL BLAZING! wow...so good...that bbq smell...ummm...i opened the top of the slow cooker and pulled apart that pork in like 20 seconds with two forks...it was sooo tender it fell right apart..there was a little bone in the middle and it came right off... now since it sat for like 10 hours in a steamer, it was a little dry...i cracked open a Bridegport Black Strap Stout and poured 1/3 of the dark beer in and finished the rest...added some more hot sauce, some more bbq sauce, mixed everything up and covered it back up for about an hour till Mel got home. best bbq pork ever she said and the rest was history.

oh yeah, cut open your roll...throw some slaw on that baby, cut a pickle in 1/2 and put both halves on the roll and cover w/ a couple large gobs of pulled pork.

just another fresh recipe from Chef Boy-R-P.

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mecs visit

our girl meca aka jenny from the block came to visit us for the weekend...mecs is a travellin girl, from the philippines to virginia beach to philly to san fran....she's a big time trooper, as she woke up at 4:45 am this morning and flew back down to SF and went to work today...after going to bed at around 1 the night before...so sorry voodoo doughnuts was closed, that was a bummer...good times though this weekend, besides the hour and a half spent at buffalo exchange or whatver...i had to lie down on the ground stinke-style as a que that it was time to jet to these girls...peace though, mel and i had a blast and are really happy you came. more pics to come soon of widmer brewery, shang hai (aka pland silk city), dope train pics, and oh yeah, i love my penis. you'll see what i mean. i really do, though...

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freezing

man portland is cold today..these arctic windchills coming down from alaska sting...hopefully it'll go back to how it's been though, gorgeous...

melenie landed the full-time teaching gig she's been working hard on at joyful noise downtown, a nice preschool/kindergarten...

ive been cooking great meals as usual...some awesome pico de gallo the other night w/ strawberries, cucumbers, thai chillies, red onion, cilantro, lime, olive oil and tomates...rocked that w/ some corn tostadas, grilled ckn and rice and beans.... last night, broiled some pork chops after rubbing them the night before w/ cajun seasoning... some roasted garlic (1 hr in the oven w/ olive oil), and fresh dill blended into the mashed..amazing...and some steamed broc and baby corns w/ lots of lemon...

peace to meca isa coming to visit this weekend.... stinks, watch out, son...it's on!

Dr. Dog

wanted to let y'all know about my old roomate, tadd's little brother's band, Dr. Dog. They're really good, sound Beatles white albumish and are doing great...on a huge european tour right now with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

check Dr. Dog out.

gorgeous day in portland at mt. tabor park

so mt. tabor is an extinct volcano that is now a picturesque park in portland. it was like 65 or something and totally sunny today..we packed some food and reading materials and went for a hike/chill day in the park....back home in philly there was about a foot of snow...

grammys

the grammys were all that last night!

jay-z and linkin park rockin "yesterday" w/ paul mcartney... madonna & the gorillaz w/ de la... john legend, kanye and jamie... oh and the best one was mary j blige w/ u2 doing "one"... she killed it...she was amazing! props to all the performers, it was the best grammy's i've personally ever seen....

lisa loeb

i know my fam checks this but so do my friends. and i gotta represent now and again with something more interesting than family pics. so here ya go, do y'all remember lisa loeb? well peep her now:
http://www.thesuperficial.com/archives/2006/01/31/lisa_loeb_in_a_thong.html

p!

falls/timberline/voodoo doughnuts

here are some pics from multnomah falls, timberline lodge on mt. hood and voodoo doughnuts:

(stories to come later...)

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

reiter fam visit

fam visitation time, visiting the kennedy school, as discussed in a past post. an elementary school turned into a bar/hotel/movie theatre/pool. very good time...

crib pics...

pics from my new crib, a long time coming...

an earthquake

A little rumbling and shaking in Portland

By KATU.com Web Staff

PORTLAND, Ore. - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 2.8 struck the Portland area Saturday evening. The micro earthquake, which happened at 6 p.m., was centered in the Laurelhurst area. There were no initial reports of injuries or damage.

*Melenie and I definitely felt it though..we were chillin on the couch watching back to the future or something and it felt like it came from the roof or upstairs, like bigtime shaking from up above...pretty cool...it was our 2nd earthquake experience...we felt one the first time we went out to san fran a couple of years back...it was weird, we were chillin on the bed in a hostel and it sounded like people started banging on the door...there was always a lot of activity in the hostel so we thought it was just some people messing with us...